“I’m sure she feels…relieved,” Pipa said, tilting her head at me. “Right? It’s hard trying to fit in where you don’t belong.”
“It’s kinda sad, though,” Aundi said. “Everyone came to their senses and kicked you out and you…what? Clung to the family for dear life?”
I blinked quickly, looking at the floor so they didn’t see the pain they inflicted.
I didn’t want them to have the power over me and I resented it deeply.
I knew all the reasons I was doing this and I thought that should be enough to bulwark me from judgment. I thought about this moment a lot—how others would react to me. I knew I’d confirm all of the whispers, and that whatever smidge of respect I’d managed to scrape together in their eyes would disappear.
“Shut up,” Lottie mumbled.
Aundi swiveled. “What?”
“You guys are kind of assholes, you know that?”
Aundi’s eyes popped, then Pipa patted her. “Pregnancy hormones make you crazy. My stepmom turned into a total fucking bitch…”
They walked away, laughing and stumbling into each other.
“I suddenly feel really sick,” Lottie said, emotionless.
I blinked. “Do you need help getting back to your room?”
“I’ll make my mother take me.”
Like a waif, Lottie walked away without another word.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her, pregnant and abandoned. She told me not to say anything about what I saw, but every day she seemed to disappear more.
With her gone, and West distracted, I slipped out of the ballroom. It was only eleven, but I thought…maybe I could hide in our room. If I stayed long enough, he might find me, and I could have a midnight kiss.
Thirty-Five
STORY
The room was so dark, I could only see the outline of him—a silhouette against the velvet sky.
“You’re already here,” I said, more breathless than I intended.
Grayson turned instantly at my voice, closing the distance in seconds. He dragged me to him and kissed me raw, breathless.
With his lips still pressed to mine, he said, “I’ve been waiting an hour for you, Snitch.”
He pulled at the elaborate lace and tulle that had taken my girl thirty minutes to put on.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “I hate these dresses.”
“Me too.” I breathed.
“I miss my dirty nun.” Shivers slid up and down like melted ice at the desperation in his voice. “It was so much easier to fuck you in them.” He spun me around, pressing me hard against his cock, and jammed his hand down the front of my dress, grasping my tit.
I gasped, holding his neck for balance, head falling back.
“Ah, well…” He massaged my breast, tweaked my nipple. “This is okay too.” I heard as much as I felt the grin in his voice when his teeth found my neck—the underside of my jaw, my ear, my everything.
“Tell me a secret, Snitch,” he growled against my flesh.
I tried to think of something I hadn’t told him as his bruising touch drove my brain to mush. The only secret was Lottie’s, and it felt…wrong to spill that. That secret wasn’t mine.
“I have.”
His growl rumbled in his chest, vibrating against my back.
His touch turned punishing, twisting my nipple until I arched up on a breath. Hand to my stomach, he pressed me back against his cock.
Prisoner.
“Tell me your words. They’re mine, right?”
I nodded eagerly.
“All your fucking words, Snitch,” he gritted, a harsh snarl. “Give them to me.” He bit my ear, dragging it out.
“I have,” I gasped.
Everything froze, teeth mid-bite.
He shoved me off and I stumbled forward.
I don’t know what I did wrong, but something happened. Grayson sat back on the windowsill, dragging his hands through his hair as the fireworks started to go off.
“Grayson?”
He ignored me, massaging his hands through his rose gold hair like he was working the solution to a problem he couldn’t figure out. The fireworks illumined his silhouette.
I said his name again, and again, as I moved closer to him. It fell on deaf ears.
So I dropped to my knees.
His hands froze in his hair and he looked down at me. Dark. Suspicious. So much emotion in those blue eyes that I couldn’t read.
I dragged my hands up and down his thighs. “Can I suck your cock?”
He groaned at that.
I undid his pants, and he didn’t stop me. I was mesmerized by every coiled inch of him. The deep muscled V pointing down to his cock, all the vining veins.
He was so hard. Purpled.
Wet.
Like me.
I feathered my touch along his cock and Gray threw his arm over his eyes, growling and arching his hips off the window and into my touch.
I kissed the throbbing muscles. “Please?”
Another groan.
I don’t know why he was holding himself back. Why he was acting like this. And I was so crazy with lust I didn’t care to find out.
I kissed his cock—Grayson fisted my hair, halting me, my lips just on the tip of him.
He lifted his arm slightly, just enough so I could see his shadowy lusty glare. His eyelids hooded, pupils dilated.
“I want you,” I groaned, aching with it. Desperate. “Let me swallow you, and then cover me in teeth, Grayson. Mark me, own me, I’m begging for more.”
He curled his fist in my hair. “Then tell me your words. Tell me everything, dammit. Bloody and raw!”
“I have.”
Emotion flashed in his eyes, brutal and bright and gone too quick, replaced by the darkness.
Like the fireworks in the sky.
He slammed me down onto him, cock bruising the back of my throat.
“Is this what you want?” he growled.
I tried to say yes and he jammed his cock harder against my throat. My yes was a slobbery, muffled mess. He grinned, mean.
He fucked me onto his cock.
Sloppy. Hard. Vicious.
“Snitches who don’t tell me their secrets get gagged with my cock.”
I couldn’t have asked what he meant if I tried.
Thrust.
Slam.
I gripped his muscled thighs for balance.
“I want your throat raw,” he growled. “I want it to hurt, so every time you speak, you feel the secrets you’re keeping from me.”
One last bruising thrust, tears sliding down my cheek, then he threw me off him without coming.
I fell back onto my hands.
He buttoned his pants over his still hard cock, and left me like that, with the fireworks pounding, with the taste of him still lingering on my lips.
Lingering like whatever was between us.
I want your throat raw. I want it to hurt, so every time you speak, you feel the secrets you’re keeping from me.
I stayed in our room, worrying his words in my mind like a moth with a piece of old lace. Does he know about Lottie? Only a few seconds after he left, the door opened again.
I stood up, ready to apologize. “Grayson—”
I was slammed against the wall as the fireworks pounded like gunshots in the sky. There was about a five-second window of confusion, where I leaned to my dream of Grayson, of this perfect midnight kiss with the love of my life.
So I groaned, wrapping my arms around him.
And then it happened.
Slowly at first, like a cold water leak in my heart. Grayson’s kisses were more intense. With every kiss, he used his entire soul. He bit. He sucked. He pushed me and demanded of me.
Cherries.
Why doesn’t he taste like sugar and whiskey—
The leak burst and drowned me.
I ripped my face away, looking to the ground.
One breath…
Maybe it’s in my head.
Two…
“I should have kissed you back then, Angel.”
I shoved West away, stumbling until I’d put enough space between us.
“I thought you were Grayson.”
“Did you?”
He was a dark shadow in the room. I couldn’t see his facial expression, but I heard the mocking glint on his tongue.
Did I?
“I told you I’d take whatever you gave him,” he said.
“So this is your plan to win me back, West? Doing all the things that made me hate you in the first place? You knew I wouldn’t want to kiss you so you fucking stole it.”
I couldn’t breathe. A hand fisted my heart.
Almost a year ago, in this room, I was in the opposite position.
Stealing kisses.
West gripped my face, dragging my gaze back to his. With my eyes open, as the fireworks pounded, I could see his clearly.
Too clearly.
“Let me tell you why we kiss at midnight, Angel,” he growled.
He held my head in place and my neck ached with the effort to get away.
“It’s an old English folklore. We kiss at midnight because the first person we kiss sets the tone for the rest of the year. It’s about cementing who you want by your side—in your bed.”
“I don’t want you by my side,” I cried. “You raped me.”
Cherries.
His eyes flashed. “If it’s rape, then why did you come back to me?”
My lips froze around the words you’re wrong, because his poked that terribly open wound in my soul.
I’m bad. He’s right. Grayson deserves better.
I wasn’t going to let West know that I still had a hard time viewing that night as rape. That there was a stupid piece of me aching for him to be kind. For his soul to be as sweet as the milk chocolate color of his eyes.
So I could rewrite that night, rewrite those brutal memories.
I shoved him with all my force and ran.
Ran until I reached the terrace. Laughter and the clinking of champagne glasses spun around me. I ran and ran, down the steps. My shoes got caught in the sand, so I kicked them off, toes curling in the cold sand.
A few feet from the iron ocean, I fell. The cold meant the beach was empty. Everyone was either on boats or inside Crowne Hall.
I chewed my lip raw, tears falling and blurring the glimmering fireworks. I felt dirty. Wrong. My lips belonged to Grayson, but now I know what West tasted like.
Cherries.
West tasted like cherries.
“Why are you crying, new girl?”
Thirty-Six
GRAY
Maybe I was asking too much, maybe there was a corner of her soul she doesn’t want me inside.
I don’t fucking like that.
I want to burrow inside every part of her. I crushed another sucker between my teeth.
“Is everything okay?”
I jerked my head up at my sister Abigail’s voice, then dragged a hand through my hair, exhaling.
“Did you hit your head?” I asked.
We might not outwardly loathe each other anymore, but asking me how I’m doing? The fuck?
“You seem…” She waved a hand at me. “Like someone kicked your puppy.”
I looked at my sister in her glittering gold dress. Somewhere her dog, Theo, was getting her something to eat. She was smiling. Happy.
A Crowne happy.
Abigail was my grandfather’s favorite. He might have tried to marry her off to an asshole, but for a Crowne, she was shielded from most of this world.
Both of my sisters were.
She thought our life was the usual rusted glitz and glamour; she had no idea the real darkness of this world. Neither of my sisters do—and they never would, not if I have any say about it.
I raised my phone. “Slid into some chick’s DMs and she’s being a bitch about it.”
Abigail wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting. What about your wife? Or…”
I arched a brow. “Or?”
She lowered her voice. “The girl you really love. The one I stole mother’s dresses for.”
I shrugged, looking at my phone. “I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about.”
Silence passed, Abigail’s eyes narrowing at me from beneath her thick, feathery lashes. I could tell she was about to press, when her dog, Theo, showed up. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing his face into her neck.
“Sweet girl,” he said low. “If you want to celebrate the new year together, time to fucking ditch this place.”
I rolled my eyes as my sister melted into her husband. She wrapped her hand in Theo’s, but paused on me, brow furrowing. “Bye, Grayson.”
I waved her off and took another drink, the whiskey mixing with my sugary sucker, when I saw West.
Talking to Gemma.
I was across the room, grabbing her and thrusting her behind my back before I realized it.
“What the hell, Grayson?” She tried to squirm out of my hold, I tightened my grip on her wrist. West tilted his head, trying to see Gemma.
“The fuck, Grayson?”
“Where is your piece of shit fiancé?”
Gemma blinked slowly. “Probably sliding into some underage influencer’s DMs.”
“He should be with you. Protecting you.”
Her lips parted, and her face was frozen for at least five seconds.
Then she barked out a laugh. “What the fuck?” She laughed for a solid thirty seconds. “Okay, right, sure.” She waved me off before wandering toward the eggnog, still laughing. “Horace protecting me, oh my God, what even…”
West grinned, shark-toothed. “I have to get to know my fiancée sometime, Gray.”
Story was right.
This decision would kill me. Abigail had found her happily ever after, and I would do my fucking damnedest to make sure Gemma didn’t walk down the aisle like Lottie had.
I pushed my cheek out with my tongue. “Where’s Story?”
It was a quarter to midnight, and I still hadn’t seen her come back.
His brow furrowed, and he looked away.
“Where the fuck is she, West?”
He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
I went back to our room, but she wasn’t there. Fuck.
I never should have fucking left her.
I nearly ran into West on my way out. “The fuck are you doing?”
“Looking for my mistress.”
I pushed him out of the way, heart rate rising each second I couldn’t see her. I searched the bathrooms—ignoring the socialites screaming. Searched the whole fucking first floor, and each minute West followed.
I finished the search on the terrace as my mother’s firework show was coming to an end.
“She probably went back to our wing.”
Our wing.
I opened and closed my fist, the urge to hit him overwhelming.
Little nun, where are—
I stopped, nearly dropped my phone.
She was on the beach, and she wasn’t alone.
STORY
“I’ve seen you in the news, Cinderella. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night at Unknown. A mistress now.” He ran a hand down my cheek and I jerked my head away.
“Is it true you can’t speak unless I give you permission?”
To avoid a clear silence, I stood up and grabbed my sandy heels.
“I could take you away,” he said. “You don’t have to live like this. We can go right now to my yacht.” He gestured behind him, to one of the many docked boats.
He seemed innocent enough.
A few months ago, I might have actually thought he was a prince, but the Fourth of July came flooding back. Those boats were filled with people who got off ripping wings off insects.
I shook my head, and started walking away. The fireworks above increased, exploding and dripping gold down the black night.
Hollywood gripped my arm, dragging me back. I
yanked my arm and he dug his fingers tighter into my flesh.
That’s when the rock in my stomach dropped.
He exhaled, like I’d put him out. “I didn’t want to have to do it this way.”
“I’m pregnant.”
His eyes heated, dropping to the bump. “I know.”
I didn’t wait for what came next, I shoved at him with all my strength. With elbows and knees and everything I had—but he was too strong. He was at least six-foot-two, and he played superheroes in the movies. Now he used that strength to shove me to the sand, to rip apart my dress.
I watched the glittery fabric float like butterflies in the air, land softly on the sand while he pawed viciously at my thighs. The firework finale was starting, lighting up the darkness with one exploding star after the next.
Defeated. Tired. Finished.
For a second, I let those emotions fill my chest. I felt like every day from the age of thirteen I’d been fighting men like Hollywood and I was so fucking tired of it.
Then his weight vanished. I stared at the sky and sucked cold black air into my lungs. Still stuck on the merry-go-round in my head. Until a growl of a word brought me back to the present.
“Hold him steady.”
Grayson.
“I want a go.”
And West?
I scrambled to a sitting position, pulling my knees to my chest.
West held Hollywood as Gray threw punch after punch, until a face that made millions was just a bloody, broken mess. They worked together to destroy him.
“My turn,” West gritted.
West shoved Hollywood off, and then Gray held him in place. After West had his turn, he was thrown to the sand as fireworks slammed into the stars above us.
Then they kicked.
When he’d stopped moving, they stood above him, shoulders moving with their breaths. Their heads swiveled to me at the same time and I sucked in a breath.
Their eyes burned through the night and I could see the words in their heads. With their rolling breaths and heaving chests. As veins throbbed in their necks and twined down their closed fists—they were deciding if they really were going to kill him.
But then Gray came to me in silence, slowly unbuttoned his white shirt as he did, leaving bloody stamps beside the buttons. He bent down, draping it over me and buttoning it back up as he went. When Gray finished, West draped his jacket over me.
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 21